Semiconductor memories can be considered as the most vital components of digital logic system design for computers, microcontrollers, Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) and other microprocessor-based applications. With an increasing tendency to embedded memories, limitations of memory periphery circuitry could seriously affect an overall system performance of the semiconductor memories in terms of precision, speed and power dissipation.
A sense amplifier can be one of most critical circuits in the periphery of a semiconductor memory. The sense amplifier can retrieve stored data in memory cells by amplifying small signal variations in bitlines. Due to CMOS technology tending towards deep submicron area, bitlines tend to exhibit significant capacitance, and transistors provide a low small signal voltage gain. As a result, designing a fast, high precision and low power sense amplifier can become challenging.